what do little babies think of controlled crying?

[longlady]

"He awakes in a mindless terror of the silence, the motionlessness. He screams. He is afire from head to foot with want, with desire, with intolerable impatience. He gasps for breath and screams until his head is filled and throbbing with the sound. He screams until his chest aches, until his throat is sore. He can bear the pain no more and his sobs weaken and subside. He listens. He opens and closes his fists. He rolls his head from side to side. Nothing helps. It is unbearable. He begins to cry again, but it is too much for his strained throat; he soon stops. He waves his hands and kicks his feet. He stops, able to suffer, unable to think, unable to hope. Then he falls asleep again." I think this description from Jean Liedloff is very convincing and very heartbreaking. Babies cannot know that their parents are in the next room.

[paulaplumpbottom]

Of course they can't. I bet that is just what its like

[DavidTennantsMistress]

ah how sad i'm glad we have never done CC or anything like that when DS was small. (I only did it for one night at 18 months but then gave up)

[Marina]

I think I prefer Elizabeth Pantley's more objective and constructive writings on an alternative to controlled crying.
I'm quite an attachment-tendency parent myself but I found Liedloff interesting from an anthropological perspective only.
That description helps nobody and was written by someone who is not a mother herself.

[Marina]

I couldn't do controlled crying myself, but uppermost in my mind was how bad I felt about the process tbh
I know plenty of extremely happy children and parents who made cc work for them.

[harpsichordcarrier]

I don't think you have to be a mother to empathise with how it might feel to be a baby though

[Marina]

No, I agree harpsi, but there is something about Liedloff's perspective that I just couldn't connect with. I think if you are concerned about cc as a parent Sears and Pantley are much more humane reads with both parties interests in mind

[longlady]

I think Liedloff's description IS very helpful for babies in that it might put off any parents feeling desperate enough to consider cc, especially on smaller babies. But I do like Pantley, am picking up my copy of the No Cry Sleep Solution on Tuesday. (my co-sleeping 7 month old waking almost hourly and only wants to sleep attached to the nipple, i'm reaching end of tether)

[colditz]

Nobody knows.

[longlady]

Must add that there is no way of measuring the damage that hardcore cc on young babies can cause. Yes maybe cc kids seem happy enough but we can't ever know how much more confident, secure etc they would have been without cc.

[longlady]

Colditz if you mean 'nobody knows how they feel' then you are denying babies their humanity. babies are little human beings, only more vulnerable and needy. if a fully grown human being was left alone to scream themselves to sleep, we know they would be profoundly distressed. why is it any different for a baby?

[WanderingTrolley]

Agree with colditz. Babies can't tell us, and none of us remembers what it felt like. I'm not saying this makes it ok, btw.

[TheQueenOfQuotes]

Well I used CC for DS1 as he was a nightmare baby (god only knows why after having him I still wanted more tbh - it was that bad). Did it at 6 months, one night of hell - and we never looked back. He's now a lovely 7yr old.

You make it sound like that with CC babies are simply put down and left alone for an indefinite period of time....which isn't true - if CC is done as it should be the parent returns at regular intervals to reassure them.

[TheQueenOfQuotes]

"description IS very helpful for babies in that it might put off any parents feeling desperate enough to consider cc"

wouldn't have made a difference to me. Waking hourly, co-sleeping, feeding for 1hr, wouldn't sleep even in the day on his own. I couldn't even get him to sleep on the breast and put him down/move away (if we were lying down). He screamed constantly, was overtired and I'll be perfectly honest - I rather loathed him at that point in time.

Once he started sleeping at night (which in turn meant that he had "proper" naps in the day) he turned into an adorable little boy who I then fed head over heels in love with. I was totally unable to bond with him before then.

[dooley1]

I think a description of how an overtired baby might feel might help too. Something along the lines of 'my eyes are so sore and itchy, all I want to do is sleep but keep having breast/bottle thrust in my mouth. I just want to lie down in a darkened room instead of being continusly rocked. I need to learn how to settle myself to sleep'.
I know how I feel when I want to sleep and can't [insomniac]

[dooley1]

agree with everything QofQ says

[TheQueenOfQuotes]

oh gosh - yes an over tired baby - I found it MUCH more distressing having a constantly overtired baby than doing CC for 3 nights (and the first night was the only "long" one for me. Incidently - DS1 from being awake most of the night slept through on the first night (we didn't need to use CC at all in the night as he didn't wake!) , slept through on the 2nd, and continued to sleep through!!!

[WanderingTrolley]

Sorry - I'm not entirely anti cc, I was thinking more of babies who are left to cry it out, with no one going back in till morning.

I've worked as a night nanny and done controlled crying - I can vouch for it working for most babies I've dealt with.

I also had a maternity nurse interview, where the parents wanted to do it from day one.

Oddly enough, I didn't get the job.....

[TheQueenOfQuotes]

Day one OMG!

I will admit to sometimes letting DS3 cry for 5-10 minutes to go to sleep, sometimes he needs to, most of the time he'll have a little grumble and fall off to sleep quite happily. But even that I would never have done from the start! And he still wakes sometimes at night (usually only the once) - but am not intending doing any CC or any other "sleep" method with him as he's slowly getting better on his own.

DS2 was a dream, slept through from 3 weeks and never cried before falling asleep.

[Heated]

It's a rather over-blown piece of emotive writing, A grade (46/54) rather than A* since it lacks subtlety.

Presumably written to inspire guilt in the neglectful,hard-hearted witch who abandons her baby to the terror of the night

or

an inaccurate and hyterical depiction of what cc is?

[colditz]

Babies are only little human beings in that they turn into human adults, and have human rights. They neither think nor behave anything like a human adult. I am not denying a baby's humanity by declaring I don't know how it feels, I am just not arrogant enough to make the assumption that just because I would react a certain way, that means everyone would.

[longlady]

Heated - yes it's a very emotional/hysterical piece of writing, but hysterical is exactly how a baby becomes if left alone.
colditz - I really don't think the assumption that prolongued crying and screaming = serious distress (regardless of age)is arrogant, it's biology.
Qof Q - i take your point, current cc practice does not mean being left alone indefinitely to "cry it out", but apparently there are some cruel misguided people who still do this to newborn babies (i had to see it with my own eyes on Bringing up Baby to believe it possible).

[TheQueenOfQuotes]

Cry it out, and CC are two totally different things - sorry but I think you need to get your facts correct first.

[Mercy]

The OP quote doesn't sound like controlled crying to me - more like left to cry for a long period of time (a la CV and GF) And it's not recommended for little babies anyway.

[theUrbanDryad]

actually, dh read that piece as it was quoted in No Cry Sleep Solution, and said that he could remember being about 2 or 3, and being left in the car while his parents were in the pub, and crying until he was sick. this is why we would never do CC or CIO. agree though that it is a very emotive piece of writing, but then it is an emotive subject.

[notnowbernard]

"I'm at the end of my tether. I haven't had more than 1.5 hours sleep in a row for over 5m now. My 2.5 year old is suffering, too, and tantrumming all over the place through interrupted sleep and divided attention. I cannot put my baby down, for she will not stop screaming. Nothing is settling her, save driving around in a car. I feel like I could pack a small case of clothes and just escape... I am absoultely exhausted, cannot cope, cannot see an end. I have no respite. My partner works nights, my family are far away... what can I do?"

A Mother's perspective maybe?

And what might prompt her to opt for CC?